Improving employee movement and communication at Emil Frey
EF Logistics, a member of the EMIL FREY group, offers logistics and warehousing services for spare parts for motor vehicles in Lozorno, Slovakia. The Swiss EMIL FREY Group is the largest private company engaged in the import and sale of new motor vehicles, used vehicles, as well as the sale and distribution of spare parts. According to Handelszeitung, the company employed more than 22,000 employees and generated sales of 11 billion Swiss francs in 2019. As of 2017, the company is the largest car dealer in Europe.
Summary
EF Logistics is continuously striving to improve controls across multiple warehouse zones while improving and accelerating non-verbal communication between employees. They therefore chose the NIVY Watch smartwatch as a solution to help them with these challenges and to further streamline internal processes. After deploying the watch, monitoring of the warehouse zones was simplified and the exchange of information was accelerated. This also allowed the company to analyse work processes step by step and take into account their time requirements.
Challenges and objectives
EF Logistics faced two major challenges in its warehouses. The first challenge was to improve control in areas of the warehouse where it was more difficult for employees to identify damage to goods. NIVY Watch was to help with monitoring employees in those zones, identifying their movements, increasing work efficiency and improving workflows and systems. Another challenge was to streamline communication in the warehouse. Non-verbal communication is increasingly important and extremely useful in a warehouse with a larger footprint and increased movement of people. As there was insufficient mobile signal in some warehouse zones, phones were often unusable. If a manager wanted to reach a colleague, he was forced to look for him directly in the warehouse several times a day. This way of working was inefficient in terms of time and also because of the increased burden on the manager and the employees. These two challenges were key in EF Logistics' decision on how to monitor the movement of employees in the warehouse and have real usable data on which (also by linking internal systems with Power BI) to evaluate the work performed at a given time and place.
Solution
EF Logistics opted for NIVY Watch as a solution to their requirement with employee control and communication. NIVY Watch consists of a professional smartwatch, Android firmware, a multi-charging station and NIVY Data Factory cloud storage. The watch is equipped with specialized hardware and software that identifies nearby Bluetooth sensors and accurately determines the distance and time spent in their vicinity. This function can be used as an indoor location system. The watch can be used to send short messages between managers and employees using the NIVA Data Factory, a mobile app, or a pre-configured set of texts from the watch. EF Logistics also considered alternative solutions, but found that there wasn't a wide range of options that solved their problem that were both sophisticated and easy to implement.
"The watch seemed to be the ideal solution for us because it frees up the employees' hands and doesn't restrict them from other activities,"
Peter László, Quality Manager for EF Logistics
With NIVA Watch, the company was able to address the challenges associated with activity monitoring and internal communication, as well as the requirement to integrate the system with Power BI. In addition, the deployment did not require the installation of any additional cabling or expensive hardware. EF Logistics evaluated the implementation of the entire NIVY Watch system as simple and straightforward. They were comfortable with a pre-configured system where no additional intervention or special skills were required to operate it. They were able to deploy and operate the solution themselves and the only step they had to take was to spread the Bluetooth sensors around the warehouse. As soon as they were deployed, the watches started collecting data, which was immediately displayed in the NIVY Data Factory cloud application.
"The deployment of the NIVY Watch was extremely fast and we managed it virtually on our own."
- Peter László Quality Manager, EF logistics
Results
The company uses the NIVY Watch solution as an indoor location system and also to simplify communication between employees. Almost immediately, it registered a positive impact on the overall work processes. After submitting employee movement data, EF Logistics saw an increase in movement in previously neglected zones. Additionally, NIVY Watch provided them with more effective communication between managers and employees without the need for physical interaction between them.
With the vast amount of data collected, the company's management was able to begin working with staff to further improve internal workflows. They also noticed a significantly more responsible performance of work activities that ensured the smooth and safe operation of the warehouse.
"From our point of view, the indoor location, communication, the ability to accurately measure the timing of various work tasks as well as the ease and speed of deployment are the most useful features of NIVA Watch. We would recommend NIVY Watch to other companies as well, because it is a technology that can be adapted to any needs in different areas of production, service or administration."
Peter László Quality Manager, EF Logistics
EF Logistics rates NIVY Watch as an extremely effective solution to their challenges and they intend to extend the use of the system further within the company - into areas where non-verbal communication is important, which is also efficient, fast, direct and without the need for direct physical contact.